Bootleg Biology: Mad Fermentationist Brett Saison

[Yeroc]

Big brewing weekend for me and this yeast. Saturday I brewed a 5.5 gallon batch of Drew Beechum’s Saison d’Hiver Infernal that had a 4 step mash. First time doing a step mash. Because this recipe had a big grain bill, I did a parti-gyle to get a second beer out of the 3rd runnings.

SATURDAY

Saison d’Hiver Infernal is a huge beer. The recipe calls for a 26 lbs grain bill, which was too big for my 10 gallon igloo cooler mash tun. So I did a 19 lbs grain bill and made up the different with DME in the boil. My post boil gravity was 1.125, which is 5 points under the recipe’s 1.130 OG. I think that 5 point discrepancy is due to “issues” I had adding the 6 lbs of DME to the boil. I’m going to assume that at this high gravity I’m okay being 5 points under. I pitched this beer onto the yeast cake of the ginger beer I brewed two weeks ago. d’Hiver Infernal calls for a cinnamon stick and vanilla been at the end of the boil so I figured any flavor coming from the ginger beer's yeast cake would meld in nicely.

Pumpkin Saison. The second beer from the parti-gyle had pumpkin added to the boil. I did a mini mash of 3 lbs two row at 154 and let it rise to 158 over about an hour. The two row was just to up the gravity a little bit. I added the mini-mash to my igloo cooler with the main grain bill and sparged with about 4 gallons of water at 168 and let it settle while I dealt with the Saison d’Hiver. Friday night I put 3 x 29 oz cans of pumpkin into a crock pot and cooked it down until it was time to add to the 60 minute boil. No spices added in the boil. I’m not sure if I want to add any spices to this one. Might just be a saison with a squash flavor, but I’ll decide later if I want to dry hop with pumpkin pie spices. By the time it was time to cool down this wort I was tired and had dinner plans with the wife. So I didn’t cool down the wort. Instead I wrapped foil around the edges of the lid and left it overnight to cool.

Saturday was a full and somewhat frantic brew day only made possible because the kids were away at overnight camp. Yay, camp!


SUNDAY

On Sunday morning, the d’Hiver Infernal blow off tube was going gangbusters. I did something that’s probably crazy. I was concerned about the oxygen the yeast needs to handle this big beer and I don’t have an oxygenation kit. So I sprayed everything down with StarSan, pulled the lid off the bucket and used my giant mead whisk to whip in more oxygen. I whisked for about 4 minutes. I figured since I’m using a mixed yeast culture, maybe I could get away with this without getting an unwanted infection. But that’s not all…

Later in the day. I pulled the lid off again and spooned out some krausen to use in the pumpkin saison that I racked into a 3 gallon carboy Sunday morning. The pumpkin saison fermentation was off to a nice start Sunday evening.

And now I just need to manage that Saison d’Hiver fermentation over the next few weeks. Hope I don’t get a stall. Currently fermentation is at 83 degrees and I plan to inch it up very high over the next week plus.

 

[Oldsock]

My post boil gravity was 1.125

Excited to hear what sort of attenuation you achieve! I've never gone over 1.075 with the blend. Alcohol tolerance could be an issue, but hopefully the Brett eventually finishes it out.

 

[Yeroc]

Excited to hear what sort of attenuation you achieve! I've never gone over 1.075 with the blend. Alcohol tolerance could be an issue, but hopefully the Brett eventually finishes it out.

The other beers I’ve made with this blend have been much lower alcohol with low mash temps. They’ve all been bottled pretty quick. This d’Hiver Infernal will be interesting. I’ll be curious to see when the saison yeast seems to reach tolerance. I’ve been wondering if I should follow up the saison yeast with a Champagne yeast to help dry it out, but I think that’s a last resort if the original yeast stalls. I do plan on letting this age a good long while to let the brett do its thing.

 

[Yeroc]

And now I just need to manage that Saison d’Hiver fermentation over the next few weeks. Hope I don’t get a stall. Currently fermentation is at 83 degrees and I plan to inch it up very high over the next week plus.

Update on my Saison d’Hiver.

Brewed 15 days ago. After about a week in the fermenter at 84 degrees the temperature was inched up to 90 and then notched back down to room temp, which is 76 right now. Last night I switched out the blow off tube for an air-lock and pulled a sample. The gravity is down from the OG of 1.125 to 1.020. I think that's great. I was really worried about a stall with the high starting gravity. The recipe's listed FG is 1.016 so I think I'll get there, or close, even if it's over time with the brett. Since I don't have a free glass carboy at the moment, I guess I'll let this go in the bucket for another week or so before transferring.

Sample tasting: Aroma has the expected saison notes and some banana. Taste had a mild roastiness and some traditional saison flavors, but what dominated was the alcohol. This is very alcohol forward, as you would assume, but not dissimilar from other big beers like maybe a barleywine. Luckily it's not fusel. I think the alcohol's rough edges will round with age. Lots of aging. I did not perceive the cinnamon or vanilla been, but maybe those will come out as the flavors blend with time.

 

[Oldsock]

The gravity is down from the OG of 1.125 to 1.020.

Not bad, close to 14% ABV! I wouldn't have guessed that it would make it that far.

Just dusted off my culture after nine months in the fridge. made a quick vitality starter when I pulled off a few gallons pre-boil for a quick sour. Saison was fermenting well at 77F ambient by the next morning. It'll get Nelson Sauvin and thyme honey my wife bought at the farmer's market in Nelson when we were there in March.

 

[Yeroc]

Not bad, close to 14% ABV! I wouldn't have guessed that it would make it that far.

Just dusted off my culture after nine months in the fridge. made a quick vitality starter when I pulled off a few gallons pre-boil for a quick sour. Saison was fermenting well at 77F ambient by the next morning. It'll get Nelson Sauvin and thyme honey my wife bought at the farmer's market in Nelson when we were there in March.

I've had a lot of fun with your yeast blend this summer from a Lawn Saison, your Merican Saison, a Ginger Brew Saison (still bottle conditioning), the giant Saison d’Hiver, and the parti-gyle Pumpkin Saison.

From the Merican and the Ginger Beer, I reserved a gallon of each to put on pomegranate pomace. The Merican w/ Pom has a distinct ruby grapefruit taste. The Ginger w/ Pom hasn't been bottled yet, but I have high hopes for that flavor combination.

I also used the yeast for a primary fermentation on AmandaK's extract lambic recipe so I could harvest some "clean" yeast blend for something else in the future. Glad to hear your yeast came back strong after nine months in the fridge.

Thanks for helping me have a fun brewing summer!

 

[TravelingLight]

Racked mine to 7# apricots yesterday. Pitched the blend 50 days ago, gravity was at 1.007 when I racked over. I'll give it a couple weeks or so on the apricots before racking to the keg for conditioning.

 

[Oldsock]

Racked mine to 7# apricots yesterday. Pitched the blend 50 days ago, gravity was at 1.007 when I racked over. I'll give it a couple weeks or so on the apricots before racking to the keg for conditioning.

Did you end up mashing at 148F. Surprised it is still at 1.007 (although not a bad thing with the fruit adding water and simple sugars).

Just racked a beer last night onto white peaches and nectarines. Great time of year for fruit beer!

 

[TravelingLight]

Did you end up mashing at 148F. Surprised it is still at 1.007 (although not a bad thing with the fruit adding water and simple sugars).

Just racked a beer last night onto white peaches and nectarines. Great time of year for fruit beer!

Yep, mashed at 148. I'm damn surprised too. But it tastes great right now. A helluva tarter than I expected, which is fine by me.

This is my first time using apricots. Also my first time using fresh fruit (blanched, peeled, chopped, frozen, etc.) as I usually use frozen stuff. Excited to see how it turns out.

 

[Braufessor]

@Oldsock - Question about adding fruit. I brewed up a batch of Dark Saison this weekend. Going to let it primary for a while and then rack it onto cherries. The cherries were picked from my back yard, pitted, frozen. Would you recommend racking right on top of them after thawing..... or, should I heat them to kill off any contaminants. If I were to heat them, I was thinking I have a Sous Vide and could basically just put them in ziplocks and hold them at 140 degrees or so for a while to pasteurize them. Have read about people boiling fruit... but, I am not sure I want to cook it and lose flavor/aroma potentially. Any preferences or Do's/Don'ts.

Thanks

 

[Oldsock]

@Oldsock - Question about adding fruit. I brewed up a batch of Dark Saison this weekend. Going to let it primary for a while and then rack it onto cherries. The cherries were picked from my back yard, pitted, frozen. Would you recommend racking right on top of them after thawing..... or, should I heat them to kill off any contaminants. If I were to heat them, I was thinking I have a Sous Vide and could basically just put them in ziplocks and hold them at 140 degrees or so for a while to pasteurize them. Have read about people boiling fruit... but, I am not sure I want to cook it and lose flavor/aroma potentially. Any preferences or Do's/Don'ts.

Thanks

I usually thaw in the bag, pour into a fermentor, flush with CO2, and rack beer in. There aren't many microbes you have to worry about in a dry/sour beer without access to oxygen! I'm even lazier in that I don't pit my cherries.

I think there are interesting things to do with cooking fruit, but I'd do it for flavor rather than sanitation. For example, I used raspberry jam in a stout a few years ago and enjoyed the more direct flavor compared to fresh raspberries against the roasty base beer. For dark saisons I often go for dried fruit.

 

[newuser12345]

I usually thaw in the bag, pour into a fermentor, flush with CO2, and rack beer in. There aren't many microbes you have to worry about in a dry/sour beer without access to oxygen! I'm even lazier in that I don't pit my cherries.

I think there are interesting things to do with cooking fruit, but I'd do it for flavor rather than sanitation. For example, I used raspberry jam in a stout a few years ago and enjoyed the more direct flavor compared to fresh raspberries against the roasty base beer. For dark saisons I often go for dried fruit.

is the brett in this related to brux? I'm getting some good leathery flavors in a saison I made with this.

 

[MikeLastort]

I bottled my mulberry sour on Monday, with some champagne yeast.

The recipe was this:

3 kg Weyermann pilsner
1 kg Weyermann pale wheat
1 kg Weyermann Vienna

Single infusion mash at about 152F for an hour

Added a kg of table sugar and did a 60 minute boil, 2 oz Styrian Golding (4% alpha) bittering, 1 oz Tettnang (4% alpha) aroma

Primary fermentation with WLP565, Belgian Saison I, no temperature control, for 15 days. My basement is around 68-72 degrees

Racked it to my five gallon "sour" oak barrel on May 21st, and put it into my shed outside.

Added a package of Bootleg Biology BBXMAD1 The Mad Fermentationist Saison Blend yeast to the barrel on Sunday, June 25th.

Added a pound of frozen pureed wild mulberries to the barrel on Monday, June 26th

I left it in the shed all summer during the high temperatures.

Took the barrel out of the shed on August 26th, racked beer to a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. Added a second packet of BBXMAD1, and another pound of frozen pureed wild mulberries.

Bottled (22 oz "bombers") on September 4th with a package of WLP715 champagne yeast.

I really want to try some, but I'm going to let it go for a while and let the champagne yeast do its work. It tasted great when I bottled it.

 

[Oldsock]

is the brett in this related to brux? I'm getting some good leathery flavors in a saison I made with this.

Almost certainly (but hasn't been genetically identified), there was a Cantillon isolate in there at the start.

 

[Oldsock]

10/25-10/30 Bootleg Biology has the third batch of my saison blend available for pre-order!

How are the batches from the last release coming along? Posted my recipe/notes for my batch with Nelson Sauvin and thyme honey from the Nelson farmer's market!

 

[Braufessor]

I have really enjoyed this yeast a lot so far. Actually, bottled up 15 gallons in 750ml bottles 2 weeks ago. 5 gallons was a fairly highly hopped citra/galaxy Saison that I have brewed a few batches of. 5 gallons was the same beer with almost no hops to let the lacto do some work. The other 5 gallons was a black saison (very low hopped) that I put on cherries harvested from my backyard. Left it on the cherries for about 3 weeks or so. All 3 tasted very good going into the bottles. I am optimistic about the Black Saison with Cherries - I think it is going to be pretty good.

The beers I have made with this have all been good within 6 weeks...... and that has been a hurdle in letting them age more. Drinking them too fast The ones I have left in the bottles for longer - 3-4-5 months were really great. They have become a bit more tart and crisp.

So, my main mission has been to brew up a lot more of these saisons (some hopped, some not), bottle them in 750's and stock pile enough that I can let them sit longer. I now have 8 x 12 packs of 750ml bottled and another 5 gallons fermenting. Another 5 gallon batch on deck in a week or two.

At any rate..... loving this yeast blend so far, and eager to keep experimenting with it. Definitely my "go-to" saison yeast at this point.

 

[TravelingLight]

I finally got mine in the keg. If you remember, my beer with this was working pretty slowly. But it finally hit its stride.

Brewed: 7/16/17 (OG: 1.060)
Kegged: 10/20/17 (gravity on 10/3 = 1.006)

Racked it to apricots back on September 4. Last ph check was 9/17 and it was at 3.27. It's super pucker and I love that. But, this was my first time working with brett, and I made the mistake of not treating this beer like a NEIPA (with regard to oxygen exposure) so it's gotten a little acetic character to it. Which is disappointing, but not terrible. I'm going to let it keg condition/prime for a month at least, and see if some of the brett funk can mellow out some of the vinegary acidity. Worst case, I may end up doing my first "real" blending with this beer if the acetic acid is too much. Thoughts?

FWIW, this beer has sent me down the sour hole big time. Prior to this, I'd done some kettle sours, but no true mixed fermentation beers. Now, it's all I want to do. I say that as I have a NEIPA in the fermenter, but I still need some hoppy nightlies! But I've now got about 5 different mixed ferm sours on deck. Thanks Mike!

 

[Oldsock]

I finally got mine in the keg. If you remember, my beer with this was working pretty slowly. But it finally hit its stride.

Brewed: 7/16/17 (OG: 1.060)
Kegged: 10/20/17 (gravity on 10/3 = 1.006)

Racked it to apricots back on September 4. Last ph check was 9/17 and it was at 3.27. It's super pucker and I love that. But, this was my first time working with brett, and I made the mistake of not treating this beer like a NEIPA (with regard to oxygen exposure) so it's gotten a little acetic character to it. Which is disappointing, but not terrible. I'm going to let it keg condition/prime for a month at least, and see if some of the brett funk can mellow out some of the vinegary acidity. Worst case, I may end up doing my first "real" blending with this beer if the acetic acid is too much. Thoughts?

FWIW, this beer has sent me down the sour hole big time. Prior to this, I'd done some kettle sours, but no true mixed fermentation beers. Now, it's all I want to do. I say that as I have a NEIPA in the fermenter, but I still need some hoppy nightlies! But I've now got about 5 different mixed ferm sours on deck. Thanks Mike!

Vinegar/acetic certainly is a good candidate for blending, just be careful not to introduce more oxygen while blending.

Glad the culture gave you a shove into sours!

 

[TravelingLight]

Vinegar/acetic certainly is a good candidate for blending, just be careful not to introduce more oxygen while blending.

Glad the culture gave you a shove into sours!

Only thing I am having trouble with now, with regard to blending, is the acidity of the current beer pre-blending. I really love the sour level on it and don't want to soften that with blending. Or should my base beer for blending into this one be lacto soured? I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Blending is tough bidness!

 

[Oldsock]

Only thing I am having trouble with now, with regard to blending, is the acidity of the current beer pre-blending. I really love the sour level on it and don't want to soften that with blending. Or should my base beer for blending into this one be lacto soured? I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Blending is tough bidness!

Exactly, if you don't want to soften the acidity too much pick an already sour beer to blend with it. Could be a quick sour, or another aged beer. Easiest option is to start with some sample blends (even if it is already bottled beer) to see what works best.

 

[TravelingLight]

Exactly, if you don't want to soften the acidity too much pick an already sour beer to blend with it. Could be a quick sour, or another aged beer. Easiest option is to start with some sample blends (even if it is already bottled beer) to see what works best.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking of doing a base pale grist, lacto souring, and blending.

But one more thing I thought of...when I racked this beer to the keg, I added priming sugar, ergo, it's going to be carbonated, at least to some degree. Won't that pose a problem blending if one is carbonated?

 

[Oldsock]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking of doing a base pale grist, lacto souring, and blending.

But one more thing I thought of...when I racked this beer to the keg, I added priming sugar, ergo, it's going to be carbonated, at least to some degree. Won't that pose a problem blending if one is carbonated?

Best to degas the keg before blending in a large scale (or jump two kegs together under pressure).

 

[TravelingLight]

Best to degas the keg before blending in a large scale (or jump two kegs together under pressure).

Man, this blending process is tough! Mad respect to you fellas that can do it well. I'll revisit in a month after I let it funk up under pressure. Thanks for all your fantastic guidance.

 

[tgif]

I brewed a pale saison with the previous batch of yeast. It was a ~2.5 gallon batch with the following recipe:

4.25 lbs pilsner
0.25 lbs each vienna, rye, wheat and cane sugar

0.75 oz each galaxy and vic secret - 30 min hop stand
0.25 oz both hops 10 days before kegging
0.25 oz both hops 5 days before kegging

My OG was 1.052, FG was 1.004

It smelled like ripe pineapple and fresh squeezed orange juice going into the keg.

 

[cmhaynes]

I brewed this with an OG of 1.049, FG of 1.003
63% 2-row
15% White Wheat
12% Flaked Oats
10% Vienna

I didn't boil the wort but just heated it up to 170 F after the mash. I didn't add any hops to the kettle. I added 1 ounce of Mandarina Bavaria and 1 ounce Hallertau Blanc to the fermenter after a day or 2 while fermentation was still vigorous. I bottled after about 4 weeks in primary, and I could not be more pleased with the results. I'm horrible at describing beers, but it's exactly what I wanted it to be. You can't tell what is from the hops and what's from the yeast. It's dry, slightly tart and tastes like orange juice.

 

[Yeroc]

Update on my Saison d’Hiver Infernal.

It's been 3 months since brew day. The other night I bottled most of the 5 gallons into thick 750ml cork & cage Belgian bottles and the rest into a few thick crown cap bottles. Final gravity 1.015. The original gravity was 1.125. So the ABV is in the mid 14% range. Definitely the biggest beer I've made.

I primed with 5.3 oz table sugar for about 2.8 volumes of CO2. I assume (hope) the brett will continue to bring down the FG in the bottle and that might put the CO2 into the 3 volumes range eventually. Not sure what is the alcohol tolerance of brett, but I hope it pushes this into the 3 volumes range. I also added 2 grams of Red Star Premier Blanc dry yeast. Rehydrated and then acclimated with a few tablespoons of the beer and some priming sugar water over the course of about 45 minutes. I’m not sure that really helped to acclimate the yeast to the beer but probably didn't hurt.

Hydrometer Sample: The aroma was malty sweet, dark fruit and banana. Taste dominated by the malt flavors and residual sweetness. I’m not getting a lot of what I usually think of as saison flavors because of the maltiness. Hop bitterness is restrained. While it’s hard to say that a beer with a FG of 1.015 has a dry aftertaste, I did not find it cloying. I think I referenced barleywine when I last sampled the beer, but that doesn’t seem accurate with the low bitterness. It’s more along the lines of a flat triple or quad, maybe. High carbonation will really help this beer a lot so I hope the brett keeps munching.

What else..? I still have the 3 gallons of the parti-gyle pumpkin saison from that brew day to deal with. I should probably stop thinking of it as a pumpkin saison unless I add pumpkin pie spices at some point. For now it’s more of a sour saison with squash in the boil. Any thoughts out there as to whether I should consider making this a pumpkin spiced sour saison? At last sample, months ago, it was fairly sour from the lacto. Would that work with pie spices?

 

[cmhaynes]

When I brewed with this yeast, I saved some of the slurry in a mason jar. I just scooped it right out of the fermenter. It's been in the fridge for probably 6 weeks. Today I was moving some stuff around in there, and I decided to take a look at it. There is a thin purple (yes, purple!) layer on top. What in the world could that be?

 

[Yeroc]

When I brewed with this yeast, I saved some of the slurry in a mason jar. I just scooped it right out of the fermenter. It's been in the fridge for probably 6 weeks. Today I was moving some stuff around in there, and I decided to take a look at it. There is a thin purple (yes, purple!) layer on top. What in the world could that be?

Hmmm... no idea. Can you post a photo? I once had a few bottles of hard apple cider develop a purple tint and never did figure out why.

 

[TravelingLight]

Hey guys, I need some advice...

As you may or may not remember, I brewed this, put it on apricots, then put it in the keg to bulk condition/prime under pressure for a month. The beer got fairly acetic due to headspace/oxygen (first time working with brett and I'm a *******, despite reading Mike's book multiple times). Ergo, I brewed a new beer this weekend, same base grist, that will be a 100% brett ferm, with lacto. And I'll use this beer to hopefully blend out the acetic flavor.

My question is, the main beer that's keg conditioning now at room temp: is it ok to sit indefinitely in the keg at room temp? It wouldn't be forever, but I'll probably need at least another month before the new beer is ready to blend. No problems I assume? Thanks.

 

[Oldsock]

My question is, the main beer that's keg conditioning now at room temp: is it ok to sit indefinitely in the keg at room temp? It wouldn't be forever, but I'll probably need at least another month before the new beer is ready to blend. No problems I assume? Thanks.

The risk is that the Brett will be converting that acetic acid to ethyl acetate, which has a strong solvent character at higher levels. Depending on how it tastes now, cold might be better if it is an option.